Japanese lab develops wearable robot arms controlled by feet

From Inami Laboratory in Tokyo come MetaLimbs: a pair of robotic arms that are attached to your back and controlled by your legs to work just like regular arms. As the promotional video shows, they have movements delicate enough to pick up a smartphone from a table.

The arms are controlled by sensors attached to the legs and feet, which allows you to control the arms relatively intuitively by moving your feet and toes. While this does have its limitations, like an inability to flip someone the bird (unless your toes are remarkably flexible), it still allows for a wide range of actions.

The arms also have haptic feedback, which means you can feel the sensation of touching things in your feet for more accurate controls. In fact, the team working on the MetaLimbs are so confident they show some brave soul operating a soldering iron using a special attachment.

Other attachments are also possible, like a pincer and…uh, nightcrawler? What the hell is that on the bottom?

Of course just the plain old robot hands are a huge assistance for people with disabilities or heavy workloads.

And all of you out there with the very specific dream of drawing a picture with both hands at the same time while standing up without a proper easel? Your prayers have been answered.

If I could get my hands on those hands, I think it would go a little something like this…

Viewers were also very impressed with the machine, and the few comments not related to masturbation include:

“As always, Japan improves their skills in creating robots.”“Clever, and I like the name too.”“This can help so many people with disabilities. Amazing technology, brilliant!”“That’s great, good job and congratulations to the team! I really hope this kind of technology can be helpful as a prosthetic.”“Great job Japan! Now make it open-source so we can all build robotic arms, especially for the amputees.”“Holy s**t, I would never have to stop looking at my cellphone while in the toilet…”

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any talk of selling or giving away MetaLimbs, at least in their current form. Like Inami Laboratory’s many other projects, this seems to be more for the pure research of finding ways to augment people and advance the human race.

Until someone does make MetaLimbs available we’ll all have to settle for the number of arms life dealt us. And I’ll have to put up with that smug jerk Johnny Cage for a little while longer.